Arturia Efx Motions

Arturia’s latest effects plug‑in is designed to help you keep things moving...

The last couple of years have seen some absolutely brilliant creative multi‑effects plug‑ins released, and we’ve reviewed a number of them, including Cableguys’ ShaperBox, Lunatic Audio’s Narcotic, UJAM’s Dynamo, DS Audio’s Tantra and, most recently, Baby Audio’s Transit. If your ear candy jar is running empty, pretty much any of them could be added to your ‘contenders list’, alongside longstanding favourites such as Output’s Movement or Sugar Bytes’ Turnado or Effectrix. And now, Arturia can be added to that list too: their new Efx Motions is a creative effects processor designed, as the name implies, to inject some movement into your sounds. All the usual plug‑in formats for Mac and Windows hosts are supported, including AAX, AU, and both VST2 and VST3.

Motion Picture

At its core, Efx Motions comprises two suites of functionality: a range of effects, and some powerful modulation sources. The effects options include: a set of five individual effects modules that can be arranged in a user‑defined order; a Beat Repeat section (glitch‑style effects that can be triggered using a step sequencer system); and a dual effects processor that can be used to add conventional delay or reverb effects but also has a number of other options.

Each of the five main effects modules includes its own Motion Envelope system and, in addition, there are three global modulators that can be configured as envelopes, step sequencers, random generators or envelope followers. There are also two macro knobs which can be linked to multiple parameters for additional control. Any/all of these virtual knobs (or, indeed, any individual parameter) could easily be linked via the DAW to a hardware controller for hands‑on sound tweaking.

The Motion Envelope for each module can be triggered in a variety of ways including based upon the dynamics of the input signal.

Those two macro knobs are located top left of the UI in the plug‑in’s main ‘dashboard’. This topmost strip provides access to the extensive collection of presets that are neatly organised into categories (Gated Rhythms, Glitches, Modulated Filter, Risers, Stutters etc.) and you can, of course, create (and save) your own. The central part of the dashboard area provides the Crossover display, allowing you to confine processing to a specific frequency band. Used with the global Output and Wet/Dry controls, this allows plenty of flexibility to blend unprocessed and processed signals together in some interesting ways.

Just For Effect

The rest of the UI is dominated by the Core section, and this is where we find the five main effects modules (Noise, Drive, Filter, Volume and Pan), which can be drag‑dropped to change the processing order. Clicking on a module header brings it into focus, allowing you to adjust a whole range of properties for that module, such as the specific flavour of effect to be used, various parameters and some of the modulation features. Each module provides pretty much what you’d expect. So, for example, the Filter module includes filter types drawn from some of Arturia’s synth emulations, and there are 10 different styles of distortion to choose between in the Drive module....